


Trauma bleeds Across our Skin

by Chibifukurou



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 15:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15799650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: Tony Stark is brilliant, everyone agrees. And if his skin is marked by trauma that no five year old should wear, its simple enough to explain away.It’s Jarvis who carries the mirrored marks to Tony. Though his marks rarely scar. He is kind, and patient and he never leaves a mark on Tony that lasts for more than a day. This is Tony’s first realization that the entire world is not like his father.I'm planning to add a couple more parts to this, but this is currently a oneshot





	Trauma bleeds Across our Skin

In this world, trauma spreads across skin like ink in water. Every harsh word and snide comment blooms into being like bruise. Every creeping, horror filled, thought crawls across skin in technicolor.

People like to say that no one can hide abuse in this world, where everyone can see the marks of fear or angry words on people skin. Surely if something wrong was happening they would notice.

This is a lie.

Tony Stark is brilliant, everyone agrees. And if his skin is marked by trauma that no five year old should wear, its simple enough to explain away.

His father says he’s sensitive and too easily hurt. He get into scrapes and shows up the older students and other kids poke fun and laugh. Silly kids stuff, nothing to worry about.

And if that doesn’t explain the marks that bloom across his skin each night, well Howard Stark is a pillar of the community he wouldn’t hurt his only child.

This is another lie.

This is the truth, Tony can never remember a time before he had marks on his skin.

Tony doesn’t even know what they mean at first. Until Jarvis starts putting on Sesame Street and Mr Rogers while he makes breakfast for Sir and Madame. “Our little secret.” He says with a wink.

Tony watches in facination as the puppets get marks put on and taken off as they learn lessons about sharing, and not saying mean things to each other. He mouths along with the apologies and imagines his father being sorry like Oscar the Grouch.

He apologizes the next time Sir calls him into the study to scream at him. Its the first time Sir hits him. The next morning when Jarvis goes to turn on the TV, Tony asks him not to. Tony has learned his lesson there is nothing he can say that will make the marks go away.

Jarvis says Sir doesn’t mean to be this way. He’s just very stressed and angry, and he never did recover from the war.

After that, Tony tries to be smarter, faster, study harder, anything to make Sir less angry. He never manages to do it. And the belief that he brings the pain upon himself leaves a mark all its own.

The marks you think you deserve are the ones that last the longest. Tony’s marks never fade away, instead turning to scars, layered one over the other. Until he starts to think of it like armor. Every screamed word and thrown punch is expected, mundain. Nothing he experiences is enough to cause fresh marks when he has half a dozen scarred wounds from exactly the same pain.

Often when a child is abused their marks are mirrored on a parent or sibling who feels the pain as well. Maria doesn’t bear any of Tony’s marks. She drinks away the trauma before she can remember it, before it has a chance to stick on her skin.

It’s Jarvis who carries the mirrored marks to Tony. Though his marks rarely scar. He is kind, and patient and he never leaves a mark on Tony that last for more than a day. This is Tony’s first realization that the entire world is not like his father.

His second realization is when he is old enough, that he is sent away to school. There he discovers new cruelties that write themselves across his skin. But he discovers new joys too. Sharing, talking about misunderstandings, and apologies don’t always work. But sometimes they do, and that is enough to keep most of his new marks from scarring over. He dreams of being old enough to leave home forever, of running away with Jarvis and never seeing marks on either of their skin again.

He is sixteen when he gets the one and only scar Jarvis ever gives him. It’s a black thing that twists into being over his heart as the man on the other end of the phone explains there has been an accident.

Even as he registers the words he wonders if Jarvis’s body in the morgue had mirrored this mark as well.

When anyone asks about the mark on his chest, the one that never heals enough to scar, he says he got it the night his parents died.

This is the truth, but it is also lie. He got it the night Jarvis died. His parent’s deaths had not left any permanent marks on his skin.

It is decades before he admits to the whole truth. He is dying in a cave in Aphganistan, with a car battery strapped to his chest and half of Jarvis’ mark cut away to save his life.

Under the baking sun, wearing the marks of both the men who changed his life, Tony starts his life anew. 

By the time he crawls out of that cave to freedom, he has another mark that will never fade. It’s the mirror to the one Yinson carried for his dead family.

Under the baking sun, wearing the marks of both the men who changed his life, Tony starts his life anew.


End file.
